


Neither/Nor

by laEsmeralda



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28364394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laEsmeralda/pseuds/laEsmeralda
Summary: Unlikely allies learn to take solace.
Relationships: Amos Burton/Jim Holden, Chrisjen Avasarala/Amos Burton
Comments: 18
Kudos: 84





	Neither/Nor

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place just after S05 E01, so plan accordingly.

She is patient. But this fucking post is going to be her death. The rare spot of light is an encoded message from Bobby. Her fingers tap on the loveseat arm. She releases an exasperated sigh.  
*******

He’s overeager now to get to full gravity. He’s managed not to drink or drug himself into a problem on the trip. The fighting helped. But a guy swamped in grief only has so much patience, and the mech delay until tomorrow irks him. He would offer to pitch in and fix whatever’s wrong, but he’s on thin ice. Avasarala is watching him.  
*******

Her evening shift guard sounds bemused. “Ma’am, this can’t possibly be right, I know, but—”

“—Visual,” she interrupts. The live feed quirks her mouth. “Projection.” She pauses a moment to allow the holo to deploy. Pointedly, she says, “Disarm him, _gently_ , and send him up.” 

She isn’t decent by societal standards, but her loungewear would suffice for many formal events on the galactic stage, so she simply waits. The relative lack of cosmetics is only regrettable because they are part of her armor. She doesn’t feel by any means past armor with this one.  
*******

He drops his repurposed bag, gingerly, just outside the lift door, shows her his empty hands. 

She blinks at him from a sumptuous leather couch, her satins and velvets spilling around her. “Thank you for not hurting my guard.”

“Wouldn’t be at all polite.” Amos stands quietly for several moments. In her world, she always looks arranged by an entourage. In his, she was unarranged, frightened, stubborn, and resilient. “I didn’t like how we left it earlier. I had a little time to stop by.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t set the proper tone for a hero of the realm. It’s good to see you. We served in the trenches together, however briefly.”

“We’re still serving together,” he replies. “Being jokingly familiar back at your office, that was just me thinking you’re family now. My mistake, Ma’am.”

“It’s Chrisjen, just not _Chrissy_ for fuck’s sake.” 

He suspects she has an association with that nickname. “I get it, we ought to be called what we want to be called. I mean it affectionate. It’s how I think of you, no disrespect. I never call Holden _James_. I know you do. But he’s _Jim_ in my head when he isn’t Cap. I get that I shouldn’t do it in front of other people.” 

She eyes him. Relents. “You don’t look like shit, not physically. But a mother can see things in a young man’s eyes that even he doesn’t know to be there.” 

Softly, dangerously, he says, “You aren’t my mother.”

There is something there, many things, that she had best steer clear of. “I have had the experience, that’s all.” She hates that even after all this time, the mere thought _son_ makes tears jump into her eyes.

“Aw, man. I didn’t mean…”

She dashes a hand over her face and stands, fabric swishing around her. “Not at all. May I fix you a drink? Will you actually drink it? I’ve no reason to poison you.”

He actually smiles a little. Nods. “I wasn't refusing your hospitality earlier. I’ve tried to be good on this trip. I can get a little out of control if I’m not careful.”

She shows absolutely no surprise. “The death of a close friend,” she pauses on the word,” alters one in deep places.” She doesn’t fill the space with chatter as she finds glasses and the right bottle and pours.

He doesn’t speak as he watches her move, habitual observation turning to curiosity. She must have been a dancer as a girl. She places her bare feet, unconsciously, just so in counterbalance. He’s pretty sure she knows all about Murtry, and the beaten belter racketeers on the way here. Yet she turns her back to him without the slightest apparent concern. It isn’t because she can defend herself. That’s incredibly hot. There isn’t much he can do about hiding his appreciation. Fortunately, when she turns to walk to him, her eyes are on his face. He takes the glass, clinks it to hers. “Sipping or shooting?”

She laughs. “In light of your comment, sipping is wiser, regardless. I’m not certain I can handle out-of-control Amos.”

He knows he isn’t imagining the mischief although she probably doesn’t mean it like he wants her to, like it sounds in his head. “Chrisjen, I’m not a chess player like you, and even if I was, you’d hand me my ass, so I’d best just say what I mean.”

Her big eyes are only mildly wary as she tips the heavy glass and sips. 

“I find you unbelievably attractive. I have some down hours before I ship to Earth. I can go get a nice bed for the night, but I thought I’d first see if the attraction might be mutual. I understand if it isn’t.”

He has achieved without meaning to what intrigues of vast complication could not—an expression of gob-smacked surprise. The glass lowers. “If you’re making fun of me, I might have you killed,” she says, evenly, her chin coming up a notch.

“I’m not.” He could just unzip and let her see the evidence but that seems unduly blunt. 

Her head tilts as she holds his eyes. “I’m still married. I love my husband even though he’s thoroughly questioning whether he loves me.”

“I’m not usually a complication.” He leaves it at that.

Her eyes have been sparkling with what he imagines are her busy thoughts, but something warm, compassionate, takes over. That almost puts him off. He takes a step back without meaning to. “Don’t tell yourself this is something I need for healing. It’s not.” He isn’t without insight. He understands his cueing to powerful women, often but not necessarily elder. This would be a good time to find some young, silly person focused on how great it is to inhabit a nimble body full of hormones. “But it is something I want. I think you might too.”

She comes closer. Not to him, exactly, just closer. She smells amazing, she always has—not just whatever she uses. Without the jewelry, the makeup, with her hair down, she looks smaller but not less formidable. He has learned that no matter how powerful they are, women feel the shame of imperfection, at any age, the feeling worsening with time. He can’t really explain why all that doesn’t affect him.

She reaches up and runs her fingers through his short beard. “I’ve learned to expect that you’re never what I expect.” Her hand pressing on the ridge of his cock startles a shocked breath from him. 

“Is that a _yes_?” he murmurs.

She coaxes his head down and kisses him. “Yes,” she says after their lips part. 

He likes that she understands his need for absolute clarity, so that he doesn’t have to read her and risk being wrong. 

He also appreciates the heavy, soft fabrics sliding between his hands and her strong curves, the edges of bones, as he pulls her against him. Her kisses are skilled but not yet abandoned and he’d like to get her there. Her palm rolling against his cock isn’t yet a challenge to his stamina, but it feels damn good. He nuzzles into her neck and when she arches it into his lips, he scoops her up. 

Amos has tumbled her to her bed before he realizes that, under her ornate robe, her plain gown is meant to be dropped down over her hips or pulled over her head. She deals with the velvet robe herself with a few shrugs and leaves it underneath. Her nipples punctuate the deep blue satin under which she’s naked. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” he says. 

“Take off your damn clothes,” she retorts. 

He’s proud of the functionality of his body, the strength to protect what needs protecting, the ability to give and feel pleasure. He’s happy to get it naked and watch her appreciate it. Now, she knows the truth of how much he wants her.

She does not have a reputation for fucking around. He wouldn’t judge her particularly if she did, she’s had a really hard way to go for many years. But he discerns from the way she’s looking at him, almost memorizing, that she hasn’t done this in a long time, certainly not with his sort of body, and she doesn’t expect to for long after he leaves. So, as hot as he is, he isn’t going to rush. 

Amos lies down next to her and lavishes her with kisses and caresses as her fingers trace his muscles. He gives her plenty of time to explore. He even pauses to look in her eyes, not only for the chemistry of it, which he understands, but the softness of them so wide, so close. 

“Your eyes are soulful,” she says, with a hint of distant surprise, mirroring his own thoughts. She seems distracted enough that he thinks she hasn’t specifically noticed his hand under the satin, gliding up to find her wet enough that three fingers slide in easily to meet the heat and pressure of her, his thumb closing over her clit. 

“Oh, my God,” she moans, and to his great shock, she comes, nails digging into his biceps. 

“Go girl,” he whispers, the waves crashing into his hand. 

After a long struggle, she pants for breath. “You’re so attentive.”

He smiles a half-smile. “Surprised? Yeah, men are horrid at sex, generally.” From the start, he has liked that little furrow that appears when she suddenly understands something that she wishes she didn’t. “Like I said before, I wasn’t always employed in space.”

She’s complex, and her expressions are no less so. Something fierce rises and then settles back. “More?” 

He slides his fingers out and uses his whole hand to cup her. He lowers his head and mouths one breast through the fabric, feeling the flesh stiffen again, encouraging him. It isn’t very long before she’s shaking against him and he worries that he might get off before he wants to. “Chrisjen, hold on, I don’t want this to be over too soon.” He pulls his hips back from her a little and returns his mouth to her breast. 

She rolls her hips, meeting the rhythm of his hand, and in a few more minutes, comes again. 

“Jesus, how many times…?” He’s known women to have a couple orgasms over the course of a reasonably patient session, maybe more with the help of certain substances, but not like this.

She gasps, “No idea.”

He’s tempted to fuck her while she’s like this, hazy, almost melted. But an opportunity like this is rare. “Can I try something?”

She nods once, doesn’t ask anything. Again, he finds this out of character and, thus, wildly hot.

He shifts down the bed, gathers the gown up to her waist. “Tell me if it gets too sensitive,” he says, and then puts his mouth to different work. She cries out at that, her fingers catching at his hair before settling around the back of his head. Amos knows he’s good at this. He doubts that her professorial husband (love of her life though he might be) enthusiastically eats her, and if he does, certainly not this well. 

He pauses whenever he thinks she’s close, taking her from very far away from climax at the start to fully amped up, pausing, repeating in shorter and shorter cycles, until she finally convulses around him. He lies with his head against her thigh, covered in her smell, perfectly content despite the pounding ache in his cock. He rarely has sex sober, and he makes a note to himself that he should do it more often. 

“I’m usually a far more active participant,” she husks. 

“I figured you for bossy,” Amos admits. 

“Disappointed?” she asks, archly.

He chuckles, stroking her leg. 

“I thought you were the storm-the-castle type,” she says. “But I wondered if there was something else, deeper.”

He gets up on one elbow. “Did you want to be stormed?” He doesn’t think so, but he does tend to second-guess himself in the absence of verbal instructions. 

Chrisjen sits up and pushes him over, rolling him because he lets himself be rolled. She pulls the gown over her head and tosses it off the bed. 

“I dig that you just did that,” Amos says. He grabs himself to make the angle better for her.

They both sound grateful as they settle together. “Would you rather have something different?” she asks.

“This is my absolute favorite. Come down here.” He rocks with her clasped to his chest, hair in his face. She fucks like he imagines she dances, swooping, curving shapes. He undulates up into her, and she squeezes him each time he relaxes back. Finally, he warns her with a sharp sound, unable to hold back any longer. Hands locked to his shoulders, she slams her hips down, legs tight against his and he lets go. 

They don’t talk after. Chrisjen gathers up the sheets and blanket around them like a nest and they fall asleep without a thought for the outside world. 

In the early morning, Amos awakens hard, with her hands on him. She coaxes him into fucking her from behind, curled on their sides. It’s fast and hard and mind-blowing and it keeps things from being weird. 

He hurries through a shower, not wanting to miss his transport. But at the lift, he pauses to kiss her. He wants to say, “ _Don’t be so alone_.” Instead, he says, “Don’t get hung up on either/or, neither/nor. People often don’t fit the categories we expect them to.” 

She regards him for a long moment and a smile lights her face. “That’s an idea possessed of great merit,” she replies, her voice full of fondness. “Now fuck off, I have to get ready for a meeting.”  
*******


End file.
